For a change, who has been the best leader among the pack of African rulers? Nelson Mandela presently carries the torch as the best African leader. His exemplary leadership in abolishing apartheid through self discipline, denial of self and a willingness to forgive his enemies has made him one of the world's favorite leaders. But his glowing attributes has been besmirched by his divorce from Winnie Mandela, who stood by him during his life in prison. My former co-worker told me that he could have forgiven her, if he could have forgiven his detractors.

Julius Nyerere was another favorite leader, who would be listed as one of the few African leaders who voluntarily stepped down from office. He was a modest man, eschewing flamboyance and a proponent of communism

But my favorite has to be Thomas Sankara. Unbeatable, charismatic and a visionary leader of Burkina Faso. Sankara was admired for his stellar political leadership as much as he was admired for his charisma. The day he was assassinated by his dear 'friend', Compaore, Africa mourned a great leader. During his lifetime, he declared his assets publicly, which comprised of a few material goods. His trips around the country was without fanfare, he drove in a Renault 5, banned female circumcision and opposed polygamy.

There are more than a few other great leaders of Africa, but Sankara stood head and shoulders (in my opinion) above his political contemporaries in Africa. His death was a tragic loss to Burkina Faso as well as to the world because his revolutionary leadership was a stepping stone for the reformation of his society.

I am among the minority who viewed Nkrumah as less than an ideal head of state. Do some research about him and come up with your conclusions. I aint gonna follow the bandwagon and eulogize him as the best African head of state.

Patrice Lumumba? I am not familiar with his policies. But yeah, Sankara was great.

@Ndipe, for you to put Mandela higher than Lumumba is careless and following the white crowd. It is a shame you compiled your lack lustre list without doing any research. Lumumba was the first African to declare Africa for Africans, without any Neocolonialism. He was subsequently murdered by the CIA under the Roosevelt government. Mandela is worshipped because he spared white lives, a bunch of lives I do not care about.

Dr. Martin Robison Delany has been called "the father of Black Nationalism." It was Delany, in fact, who coined the phrase "Africa for the Africans." Delany was born May 6, 1812 in West Virginia, of a free mother and a father who purchased his own freedom in 1823. Delany's paternal grandfather was an African chief; his maternal grandfather a Mandingo prince. Delany learned how to read and write illegally. He later attended the African Free School. Between 1843 and 1846 Delany published his newspaper--the Mystery. Later he worked with Frederick Douglass on his weekly newspaper— the North Star. In 1859, he traveled to Africa, where he stayed for nearly a year, searching for a suitable location for emigration.

I do not know if I could rate these African Leaders in order of importance.

Never give up on the idea of an African Empire._____Garvey (Ghana's Black Star is named in honor of him)

There are legends among the tribes that some of our people were taken away a long time ago And one day they will return, and when they do, they will return as supermen._______Lumumba

We prefer self-government with danger to servitude in tranquility._____Nkrumah

"When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you hear a man saying he wants freedom, but in the next breath he is going to tell you what he won't do to get it, or what he doesn't believe in doing in order to get it, he doesn't believe in freedom. A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire . . . or preserve his freedom."_______Malcolm X

I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live. ____Martin Luther King

God has given us this land._______Jomo Kenyatta

When we were at school we were taught to sing the songs of the Europeans. How many of us were taught the songs of the Wanyamwezi or of the Wahehe? Many of us have learnt to dance the rumba, or the cha cha, to rock and roll and to twist and even to dance the waltz and foxtrot. But how many of us can dance, or have even heard of the gombe sugu, the mangala, nyang umumi, kiduo, or lele mama?_____J.Nyerere

"South Africans must recall the terrible past so that we can deal with it, forgiving where forgiveness is necessary but never forgetting"____Nelson Mandela

Someone mentioned Houphouet - Boigny as being one of the best African leaders. I'd like to concur with the individual who said that he would not even be placed in a list of one hundred, and while I am at it, I'd like to add that he would never ever be placed in any such list of honour.This was a man, who said that the Apartheid regime was the internal policy of a sovereign state and as such, and therefore was beyond the jurisdiction or interference of other African states. I believe the term used to describe such a buffoon is 'Uncle Tom'. Can u imagine? your fellow black brothers being degraded and exploited on their own ancestral lands and then a black person opens his mouth to make such an utterance.As long as such individuals remain amongst us, and I assure u, they do, the continent would never be free from the pervasive influences and interference which plague it until this day.

ATTN: shagari2: You are dead wrong believing that Obafemi Awolowo would have made the best african leader if he had been given the opportunity, cos he was a TRIBALIST to the core. Rather, Nnamdi Azikiwe (Zik of Africa) would could be regarded as the greatest african leader of all time after nelson mandela for the nationalistic phylosophy.

ATTN: shagari2: You are dead wrong believing that Obafemi Awolowo would have made the best african leader if he had been given the opportunity, cos he was a TRIBALIST to the core. Rather, Nnamdi Azikiwe (Zik of Africa) would could be regarded as the greatest african leader of all time after nelson mandela for the nationalistic phylosophy.